USAID took down its archive of evaluation reports, but a high school student happened to have downloaded them for a ML project, and they are now available online again:

https://www.aiddata.org/blog/before-reimagining-development-data-remember-what-weve-learned

GiveWell's cost to save a life has gone from $4,500 to a range between $3,000 and $5,500:

https://www.givewell.org/how-much-does-it-cost-to-save-a-life

From at least as early as December 2023 (possibly as early as December 2021 when the page says it was first published) until February 2024, that page highlighted a $7.2 million 2020 grant to the Against Malaria Foundation at an estimated cost per life saved of $4,500.

The page now highlights a $6.4 million 2023 grant to the Malaria Consortium at an estimated cost per life saved of $3,000.

You can see all the estimated cost per life saved (or other relevant outcome) for all GiveWell's grants at this spreadsheet, linked-to from:

https://www.givewell.org/impact-estimates

Screwworm is a flesh-eating maggot!

I skimmed past many posts like this, assuming that it was some kind of stomach worm, or related to the suffering of wild worms (not that I am opposed to either of those, they just don't grab my attention as strongly)

Matthew Yglesias wrote a Giving Tuesday piece about GiveDirectly that makes a compelling case for effective giving to a general audience. The article addresses why one should consider directing charity to the Global South, what makes cash transfers an appealing intervention, and how this approach can be reconciled with the desire to volunteer locally.

https://www.slowboring.com/p/you-can-help-the-poorest-people-in

Someone accidentally donated $15,000 instead of $150 to their neighbour's charity in Bangladesh. Before they could get a refund they were inundated with pictures and videos from the grateful recipients.

In addition to then donating $1,500 rather than the $150 as originally planned, they also told the story of their blunder on reddit, which went viral and caused ~3000 people to donate ~$100,000

Warm fuzzies galore

Swapcard tips:

1. The mobile browser is more reliable than the app

You can use Firefox/Safari/Chrome etc. on your phone, go to swapcard.com and use that instead of downloading the Swapcard app from your app store. As far as I know, the only thing the app has that the mobile site does not, is the QR code that you need when signing in when you first get to the venue and pick up your badge

2. Only what you put in the 'Biography' section in the 'About Me' section of your profile is searchable when searching in Swapcard

The other fields, like 'How can I help others' and 'How can others help me' appear when you view someone's profile, but will not be used when searching using Swapcard search. This is another reason to use the Swapcard Attendee Google sheet that is linked-to in Swapcard to search

3. You can use a (local!) LLM to find people to connect with

People might not want their data uploaded to a commercial large language model, but if you can run an open-source LLM locally, you can upload the Attendee Google sheet and use it to help you find useful contacts